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There are just under 200,000 registered Republicans in Wyoming. If ~200,000 Democrats moved there long enough to establish residence, they could get a Democratic senator in 2026. Doesn’t seem insurmountable.

That only makes sense if you view the electorate as though on a linear spectrum (and are standing squarely on “the left”). If you view it more like this, then it helps explain phenomena like this where ~15% of moderate/liberal Republicans routinely vote for Democrats, as opposed to ~7% of conservative/moderate Democrats going the other direction. It also helps explain issues where Trump outflanks Democrats on the left, which tends to attract Sanders-Trump voters.

edit: I’ll add that the downvoting on perfectly matter-of-fact comments in this thread (and quite frankly, most others on Lemmy/Reddit) is a really crisp display of the left’s toxic intolerance that Trump so readily and effectively leverages with middle America. Hammer that button, folks. In an infinitesimal way you’re proving Trump right every time you do.

100%. It’s fucking weird to empathize with people I’ve hated for so long, even if only microscopically. I still don’t know how to reach them, but I feel it.

I’m not sure where I made that assumption?

Yeah I completely agree. Implicit bias is a universal human trait, and I’ve consciously tried to be aware of the times it rears its ugly head. That’s why I was so caught off guard, because I’m usually on the lookout for stuff like that. My best friend is a director at a media company, and he’s spent nearly 2 years carefully documenting his interactions with a black, female subordinate of his. She’s generally a really bad employee, a poor worker, antagonistic to colleagues, and all around a sour human being, but he can’t discipline her the way he disciplines his other employees because she and her sister (who works under another director) readily claim that they’re being discriminated against, no matter how innocuous the interaction or how mundane the offense. They’ve had to fire white, cis male employees with better track records because they’re afraid that if they fire her she’ll take them to court. He’s a lifelong Republican who registered as a Democrat after 2016 and voted straight-ticket Dem this election, but he regularly confides in me that he’s deeply frustrated with the way he has to interact with these sisters. He has to constantly look over his shoulder, he has to treat her with kit gloves, and he has to document every word he speaks to her so there’s a detailed record of their conversations. I’m not saying she’s not actively discriminated against in her daily life because I’m sure she 100% is, but I’m also not saying she’s not taking advantage of this cultural moment to re-construct the power dynamic with the white male supervisor below her, no matter the needs of the business. This is why blue collar Trump supporters so routinely crow about people “playing the race card”, because some people actually do.

We’re not in a healthy place as a society, and extremists/activists on both sides are really bad at self-reflection.

I needed that Nate Silver article. Thanks for linking.

So I have a personal example, and I’ll keep it brief because there’s a lot of really detailed nuance here.

I was holding a meeting about 2 years ago, and someone recommended a follow up sub-committee meeting. I told them I’d pull together a small group of people to hold a “pow wow”. An Asian-American girl in the meeting who’s your prototypical hyper-aware leftist reached out to me after the meeting. She handled it 100% professionally and exactly the way she should have, and she politely said, “I didn’t want to say something during the meeting because I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but I do cringe a bit when you call your meetings a ‘pow wow.’ I just thought you should be aware.” I thanked her for pointing it out, apologized that it was something I’d always said almost unconsciously, and told her I’d try to do better in the future.

I’ve thought about that interaction for years. There’s something in my lizard brain that feels almost offended that she’d call me out for something like that. I consider myself to be a keenly aware left-leaning person, and I’m quite sensitive to racial or sexuality-based jokes. I run in some conservative circles, so these kinds of jokes are common. Though this particular confrontation shouldn’t bother me, for some reason deep down it does. My irrational, emotional brain wants to say, “That’s not fair! You know I didn’t mean anything by it! I’m not racist!”, and my rational brain just says, “No big deal, be better in the future.”

I can’t explain why it’s so deeply unsettling to be called out for doing something racist when I clearly didn’t mean it that way. But it does help me understand a right-leaning person who’s used to building social capital by telling racially-charged jokes that were probably very funny 10-15 years ago. Suddenly they’re not just living in a culture that doesn’t find those things funny, they’re surrounded by people who readily call them “racist” for repeating jokes they’ve probably heard dozens of times from other people. I do not think those kinds of people are racist, I just think they grew up surrounded by subconsciously-racialized tropes, and they’re simply reflecting those tropes back out into the world. And I now know how deeply painful it can be to be called a racist when you 100% didn’t intend it that way. I’m sure there’s a spectrum of intent and personal reflection, and some people fall closer to the “racist” end of the spectrum, plus some people think more or less about how they’re perceived by other people, but I understand their pain now. I cringe when the left so readily throws out these labels, not because they’re not true on some level, but because they’re “othering” to people who might be sandwiched between cultural sub-groups, and those kinds of attacks aren’t going to make those people more reflective or open to your arguments.

a clear bias for Trump.

This is the “mixed results” or unclear signal we’re seeing.

Can you square this for me?

Though enough that based on early voting the Harris campaign cancelled ad-buys in NC, because the EV exit polls showed a clear bias for Trump. So at least in that race, whatever their strategy was, didn’t work.

Where are you seeing those exit polls?

So…. 72% of democrats is too low of a number for government run healthcare for the DNC to care? What happened to doing what a significant majority of your voters want?

Yes, and did you also see that independents are split 50-50? Even if you got 100% of Democrats you’d still lose scores of swing states without independents, whose views are much more nuanced. It’s also important for national campaigns to identify exactly who those voters are. If that 72% will vote for you no matter what, but the remaining 26% will vote GOP or sit out if you push too aggressively toward government-run healthcare, then again it’s political suicide to cater exclusively to them. Unfortunately the healthcare debate doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Democrats went pretty far out on a limb with the ACA and still paid dearly over the next few election cycles.

Also, man you tell me vote if I want to matter then tell me I don’t matter.

I’m telling you that your personal preferences aren’t the only thing a politician cares about. They care about public opinion in aggregate. Your personal opinions are irrelevant to this discussion because they don’t always reflect majority opinion, and national politics is a game played at the margins in only a handful of states.

Which is it. That progressives as a whole need to vote if they want to matter?

They need to organize at the grassroots level, get involved in party politics, and expand their coalition. Majority coalitions are difficult to build but also difficult to disentangle once they’re established.

Literally the group by your own polls data you were using that votes the most. Like lol.

In 2020 and increasingly so, yes. But farther back that wasn’t necessarily true. The coalitions who have the most influence now are more or less holdovers from the 1990s and 2000s. Engagement along the ideological spectrum didn’t really start changing until after Obama, and you’re currently part of an active realignment. That doesn’t mean you’ll get everything you want right out of the gate, though.

Anyways, again, while it may only be 6% as I’ve been saying we do not need a perfect representative. I do not expect a fucking communist president. Just do some of the extremely popular progressive platforms such as healthcare for all or etc. then do your normal liberal shit for everything else idgaf.

Two things. First, I haven’t actually told you how I identify or what I believe. I’m simply telling you how progressives are or aren’t represented in major voter statistics. Second, if you zoom out a bit (like multiple decades) you’ll find that the Democratic Party has actually made significant strides leftward in terms of abortion rights, healthcare, unions, and green energy investment. Sure for every major accomplishment there’s another drawback or step in the wrong direction (investment in green energy but ALSO fossil fuels, for example), but a cruise ship cannot be steered on a dime. Dramatic shifts take time, and coalitions take years and decades to form or dissolve.

But if you want to lose 12% of your base then whatever. Hope you pick up enough republicans I guess. Have fun with that. But don’t be surprised that the single group that has the highest % voter turnout ignores you when you actively antagonize them, shit on their ideals, and tell them they don’t matter, while simultaneously blaming them when you lose, and suing any party that represents them off ballots. Thanks for reminding me not to let them have my vote because they don’t deserve shit when they pull shit like this trying to pretend progressives don’t matter tho. I was almost on the fence.

Again, this has nothing to do with me. Not sure why you’re so wedded to this being an ideological battle between the two of us, as opposed to an observation about national realities. Progressives are not a majority in this country or the Democratic Party. That means they have to be creative and deliberate in how they influence elections. It also means they’re often not going to get what they want, but that’s ok because nobody gets what they want.

Anyway, it’s clear you take this very personally, so I’ll leave it there.

Amazing what happens when you dig beneath soundbytes on healthcare:

• At the same time that Americans see a government role in ensuring universal U.S. healthcare coverage, they prefer that the nation’s healthcare system be based on private insurance rather than run by the government. Currently, 53% of U.S. adults prefer a private system, while 43% support a government-run system. Since 2010, when the measure was first tracked, the public has consistently favored private insurance, with just one exception: In 2017, U.S. adults were evenly divided in their preferences.

Also, until a majority votes based on Gaza and money in politics, neither will be addressed. Just because someone agrees with you doesn’t mean it will affect their vote. Sad but true.

Actively ignoring 24% of your base seems fucking crazy, but again.

That’s called “doing what a significant majority of your voters want.” Not doing so would be political suicide.

Also I’ve voted in every major and minor election since I turned 18. But my favourite part is you’re supposed to vote.

This is not about you. You are not the center of the universe.

But then they look at less than a third of a percent of the vote going to progressive party and ignore us.

Yes, that’s called “doing what a significant majority of your voters want.” Again. I don’t know why that’s such a foreign concept.

Retroactive correction

I actually misspoke on the first comment and double checked my source. Progressives are 12% of the left, which comes to 6% of the overall population. Despite how overwhelmingly popular progressives consider themselves to be, they are a very small minority on the national stage. Like vanishingly small. Catering to their priorities at the expense of everyone else’s would be patently ridiculous and a surefire way out of office in all but the smallest Congressional districts.

So two things:

1. 2020 saw 66% voter turnout, and 2018 saw 49% turnout. Both are records for a presidential and non-presidential year. Only 37% of Americans voted in all three elections in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Politicians do care about what their constituents want/need. They do listen. But they only care about and listen to the ones who vote. People who don’t vote don’t get a say, it’s really as simple as that, and the online cohort that cries most loudly about third parties and alternative means of governance usually does exactly zero between presidential election years to make any of that viable. Jill Stein will disappear again until 2028, like clockwork.

2. Progressives are only about 12% 6% of the population (corrected). What you want is only a small part of the overall picture. The fact remains that just because you don’t feel like politicians are listening to you doesn’t mean they’re not listening to the huge numbers of people elsewhere on the political spectrum who probably fundamentally disagree with you on a number of different issues and think of something completely different when they talk about what they want in the healthcare system.

Being a part of a pluralistic democracy means having to wrestle with the fact that you are not the center of the universe, and that the entire population probably doesn’t think like you do, and they get to vote, too.

Just as the GOP is simultaneously airing pro-Israel ads in Pennsylvania and Pro-Palestine ads in Michigan, the party can and does craft messages specific to particular regions and constituencies. The one you’re seeing is the one they’ve paid for you to see (or the one the sensationalist, hyperbolic media wants to crow about), and if you’re a reliable Dem voter in a blue state they’re very clearly not worried about telling a message that will resonate with you. Overall I’d recommend that you not hinge your sweeping conclusions about what does or doesn’t work based on polls, which have a number of limitations.

Observers have noted that the GOP is flooding the airwaves with pro-Republican polls. It’s the same thing they did in 2022. Some pollsters have even colluded directly with the GOP. So while your 538 model predictions aren’t necessarily invalid, they’re also not significantly different than they have been for weeks. The probability movement you’re seeing is not nearly large enough to justify sweeping conclusions like the ones you’re making in this post. I also find it highly unusual that just three days ago you were claiming you’re exhausted, tired of the tension and absolutism, and ready for this all to be over. Why the sudden shift toward making definitive soapbox-type proclamations about what has or hasn’t “worked” for the Democrats?

You said Harris denies her wealth. When did that happen?

the other denies it.

Your exact words.

When has she ever denied being wealthy?

Holy nonsense false equivalence, Batman. Harris’s net worth (with her husband), is about $8 million, much of which comes from book sales, pensions, and the value of her home. I’ll take the millionaire who earned her assets via public service, investment, and work over the supposed billionaire who earned his assets via loans from daddy, grift, fraud, lies, and a history of refusal to pay bills.

In all this voting third party is the crazy choice because?

Because you started with a ridiculous lie to justify it, maybe? Or, alternatively, because it’s stupid and self-defeating.

“First they came for the communists…”

Stay safe. Keep your head down.